A Royal Ruse

Chapter 17

The Whole Truth

"Camel's milk?"

Zita asked as all the girls watched the royal family thread through the flag-waving masses from the gazebo.

Joia's small face nodded. "She bathes in it every night. It's how her skin is always so smooth and glowy."

The subject of Queen Tatiana's beauty regimen came up quite naturally as a by-product of her being paraded in a horse-drawn carriage. As she sat, adored above the masses, her person took on an otherworldly quality.

Joia, whose opinions weren't often given too much weight in the group, spoke with a strange authority on all things concerning Queen Tatiana's routines and habits. Zita found it curious that everything she said went uncontested when she had never been the most reliable of narrators. It all made sense when Zita uncovered that Joia's mother was a part of the queen's counsel and one of her trusted advisors. As a result Joia's insights on the queen went largely unchallenged.

Zita hummed, unconvinced. Queen Tatiana didn't seem to her like the type to practice excessive beauty rituals. Zita couldn't help but compare the Haddonite monarch with her own reference of what a queen was supposed to be; her mother.

Queen Falini of Arnoa's love of exotic beauty treatments knew no limits. Zita often emerged from her bedchambers to the sound of her mother's screams or her servants bent over, retching. Whether it was getting shocked by eels, nibbled by beetles, or being smeared in exotic dung, the princess accepted it all as a part of her mother's highest goal in life: perfection.

In Zita's younger years, these treatments were a way for her to bond with her mother. The queen often shared an anecdote that she would've killed herself if she gave birth to an ugly child. It never failed to amuse dinner guests but Zita knew better than to think it was a joke. The only time Zita's mother approved of her was when she allowed beauty to consume her in the same way. But as the princess grew older and the queen's treatments turned more frequent and extreme it became the biggest source of contention in their relationship. The queen of Arnoa valued her image more than anything else and as soon as Zita refused to let the parasite of 'beauty' suck her dry, her mother no longer had an approving word to say to her.

"Horrible creatures, camels," Harita growled, interrupting Zita's flashbacks of her mother wrapped in seaweed and reeking up the palace with anti-aging manure. " I can't stand them."

"I ate camel meat once and my leg went dead," Curo announced while braiding her hair.

Jules scoffed. "I don't believe you."

"It's true. My cousin works on a camel farm—"

"Wait," Mehitabel piped in, "is this the same cousin who deals in exotic meats?"

"No, that cousin...accidentally killed someone's pet ostrich and they revoked his hunting license."

"How does camel taste?"

"My aunt made a stew. It was delicious but after I ate it..." Curo slapped her leg. "Numb. Couldn't feel a thing."

"Could you walk?"

Curo shook her head somberly. "Not for a full two days."

"I told you, ghastly creatures." Harita shuddered.

"The whole family is looking quite glowy today. Do you think they all had milk baths?" Mehitabel asked.

Looking at them all, the royals made a pretty portrait. They were a good-looking family with each of them fully inhabiting their unique essence.

The king flashed a winsome smile, waving warmly at his adoring subjects. While the queen dipped her head demurely, her greeting noticeably lacked the relatability the king had in spades. Sitting next to each other, their distinct natures were revealed to be opposite but not clashing. They rode side by side with a comfortable polarity that the years had afforded them. They made sense.